Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 6
CULINARY USE
VEGANS CHARGE MORAL VEGETARIANS with inconsistency: if eating animals
is a participation in a wrong practice, consuming egg and dairy products is likewise
even the more humane parts of the contemporary dairy and egg industry rely on im-
moral practices, and that therefore moral vegetarianism is too small a step in the right
direction. According to vegans, moral vegetarians have conceded that animals are not
means; that human pleasure cannot override animal suffering and death; that some in-
dustries ought to be banned; and that all this carries practical implications regarding
their own actions. Yet according to veg-ans, vegetarians disingenuously stop short of a
full realization of what speciesist culture involves and what living a moral life in such
an environment requires. Moral vegans distinguish themselves from moral vegetarians
in accepting the practical prescriptions of altogether avoiding benefiting from animal
exploitation, not just of avoiding benefiting from the killing. Vegans take the killing to
be merely one aspect of the systematic exploitation of animals.
If it is wrong to kill an entity of a particular kind, it is probably wrong to exploit
it. And if it is wrong to benefit from the entity killed, it seems wrong to benefit from
that entity being exploited. The moral logic of veganism appears sound. The viability
of moral vegetarianism depends on the ability to establish a meaningful difference
between animal-derived “products” that vegetarians boycott and those that they can le-
gitimately consume. Moral vegetarians agree that the egg and dairy industry has to be
radically reformed. The difference between vegans and vegetarians does not then relate
to the premise that exploitation exists, but to the practical conclusion drawn from the
premise: some moral vegans say that no production of egg and dairy can be nonex-
ploitative (call these “vegans”), while others hold to a more provisional position:
given
that animals are heavily exploited in such industries, one's hopes for reform are beside
the moral point (call these “tentative vegans”). Tentative vegans agree that egg and
dairy products can be produced without exploitation. Yet they cannot see how it may
be justified to cooperate with such practices as a consumer given their present immoral
nature.
Moral vegetarians will probably purchase egg and dairy products from sources that
boast of morally progressive breeding conditions (morally progressive steps obviously
do not constitute morally
acceptable
conditions). Buying products from manufacturers
ans will agree that it is not enough. The space allowed for captive animals is only
